Plum Boxed Set 1, Books 1-3 Stephanie Plum Novels) (73 page)

I fell asleep on the couch, watching Rex run on the wheel. I was awakened by the phone ringing.

“Got a call about my car,” Ranger said. “Want to ride along?”

“Sure.”

There was a moment of silence. “Were you sleeping?” he asked.

“Nope. Not me. I was just going out the door to look for Mo.” Okay, so it was a fib. Better than looking like a slug. Or even worse, better than admitting to the truth, because the truth was that I was becoming emotionally dysfunctional. I was unable to fall asleep in the dark. And if I did fall asleep, it would be only to doze and to wake up to bad dreams. So I was starting to sleep during daytime hours when I had the chance.

My incentive for finding Mo had changed in the last couple of days. I wanted to find Mo so the killing would stop. I couldn’t stand seeing any more blown-apart bodies.

I rolled off the couch and into the shower. While in the shower I noticed blisters on my heels as big as quarters. Thank God. I finally had a legitimate excuse to stop running. Eight minutes later, I was dressed and in the hall, with my apartment locked up behind me.

As soon as I climbed into the Bronco I knew this was serious because Ranger was wearing no-nonsense army fatigues and gold post earrings. Also the tear gas gun and the smoke grenades in the backseat were a tip-off.

“What’s the deal?” I asked.

“Very straightforward. I got a call from Moses Bedemier. He apologized for borrowing my car. Said it was parked in his garage, and that his neighbor, Mrs. Steeger, had the keys.”

I shuddered at the mention of Mrs. Steeger.

“What’s that about?” Ranger asked.

“Mrs. Steeger is the Antichrist.”

“Damn,” Ranger said. “I left my Antichrist gun at home.”

“Looks like you brought everything else.”

“Never know when you’ll need some tear gas.”

“If we have to gas Mrs. Steeger, it’ll probably ruin my chances of being Miss Burg in the Mayflower Parade.”

Ranger turned into the alley from King and stopped at Mo’s garage. He got out and tried the door. The door was locked. He walked to the side window and peered in.

“Well?” I asked.

“It’s there.”

A back curtain was whisked aside and Mrs. Steeger glared out at us from her house.

“Is that her?” Ranger wanted to know.

“Yup.”

“One of us should talk to her.”

“That would be you,” I said.

“Okay, Tex. I don’t think Mo’s here, but you cover the back just in case. I’ll have a word with Mrs. Steeger.”

After ten minutes I was stomping my feet to keep warm and beginning to worry about Ranger. I hadn’t heard any shots, so that was a good sign. There’d been no screams, no police sirens, no glass breaking.

Ranger appeared at the back door, smiling. He crossed the yard to me. “Did you really tell fibs when you were a kid?”

“Only when it involved matters of life or death.”

“Proud of you, babe.”

“Has she got the key?”

“Yeah. She’s getting her coat on. Taking this key thing very seriously. Says it’s the least she could do for Mo.”

“The least she could do?”

“Have you read the paper today?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“It turns out that all these murders are having a significant impact on crime. Drug
sales are way down. Pharmaceutical representatives are booking flights for obscure southern towns.”

“Are you telling me Mo is a hero?”

“Let’s just say, he isn’t despised.”

Mrs. Steeger materialized at the back door wearing a coat and hat. She huffed down the porch stairs and across her yard. “Hmmph,” she said to me. “Still snooping, I see.”

My left eye started to twitch. I put my finger to my eyelid and sank my teeth into my lower lip.

Ranger grinned.

The superhero wasn’t afraid of the Antichrist. The superhero thought an eye twitch was funny.

Mrs. Steeger opened the door and stepped back, arms folded over her chest. “I’ll lock up when you get your car out,” she said to Ranger.

Guess she was worried we’d snitch some jugs of used motor oil.

Ranger handed me the keys to the Bronco. “I’ll drive the BMW, and you can follow.”

Normally a person would take his cars home. Since Ranger wasn’t normal I wasn’t sure where we were headed.

I held the tail through center city. Traffic was heavy and people walked head down
into the wind on the sidewalks. Ranger turned off State onto Cameron and pulled into a small, attended parking lot. We were behind the state buildings, two blocks from Stark, in an area of quasi-government office buildings. Definitely not residential.

Ranger got out of his car and spoke to the attendant. The attendant smiled and nodded. Friendly. They knew each other.

I parked behind the Beemer and walked over to Ranger. “Are we leaving the cars here?”

“Benny will take care of them while I pick up my mail.”

I looked around. “You live here?”

“Office,” Ranger said, gesturing to a four-story brick building next to the lot.

“You have an office?”

“Nothing fancy. It helps to keep the businesses straight.”

I followed Ranger through the double glass doors into the vestibule. There were two elevators to our left. A tenant directory hung on the wall beside the elevators. I scanned the directory and could find no mention of Ranger.

“You’re not listed,” I said.

Ranger moved past the elevators to the stairs. “Don’t need to be.”

I trotted after him. “What businesses are we talking about?”

“Mostly security related. Bodyguard, debris removal, security consultation. Fugitive apprehension, of course.”

We rounded the first floor and were working our way up to two. “What’s debris removal?”

“Sometimes a landlord wants to clean up his property. I can put together a team to do the job.”

“You mean like throwing crack dealers out the window?”

Ranger passed the second floor and kept going. He shook his head. “Only on the lower floors. You throw them out the upper-story windows and it makes too much of a mess on the sidewalk.”

He opened the fire door to the third floor, and I followed him down the hall to number 311. He slid a key card into the magnetic slot, pushed the door open and switched the light on.

It was a one-room office with two windows and a small powder room. Beige carpet, cream-colored walls, miniblinds at the windows. Furniture consisted of a large cherry desk with a black leather executive chair behind the desk and two client chairs
to the front of the desk. No gun turrets at the windows. No government-issue rockets stacked in the corners. A Mac laptop with a separate Bernoulli drive was plugged in on the desk. Its modem was hooked to the phone line. There was also a multiline phone and answering machine on the desk. Everything was neat. No dust. No empty soda cans. No empty pizza boxes. Thankfully, no dead bodies.

Ranger stooped to pick up the mail that had been delivered through the mail slot. He came up with a handful of envelopes and a couple flyers. He divided the mail into two stacks: garbage and later. He threw the garbage into the wastebasket. The later could wait until later. I guess there hadn’t been any
now!
mail.

The red light on the answering machine was going ballistic with blinking. Ranger lifted the lid and popped the incoming tape. He put it in his shirt pocket and replaced the tape with a new one from the top drawer of the desk. No
now!
messages there either, I suppose.

I took a peek at the lavatory. Very clean. Soap. Paper towels. Box of tissues. Nothing personal. “You spend much time here?” I asked Ranger.

“No more than is necessary.”

I waited for some elaboration but none was forthcoming. I wondered if Ranger was still interested in Mo now that he had his BMW back.

“Are you feeling vengeful?” I asked Ranger. “Does justice need to be served?”

“He’s back on your slate, if that’s what you’re asking.” He killed the light and opened the door to leave.

“Did Mrs. Steeger say anything that might be helpful?”

“She said Mo showed up around nine. Mo told her he’d borrowed a car from someone, and that he’d left the car in his garage for safekeeping until the owner came to retrieve it. Then he gave her the key.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Maybe I should have a chat with Mrs. Steeger.” I knew it was a long shot, but Mo might come back for his key. Or at least call to see if everything worked out. I wasn’t looking forward to spending time with Mrs. Steeger, but if I could get her to arrange a meeting or a phone call between Mo and me it would be worth it.

Ranger checked his door to make sure it was locked. “Gonna explain to her how
Mo’s crime career is in the toilet, and she should pass him your personal number? The one that guarantees him safe passage to the state spa?”

“Thought it was worth a shot.”

“Absolutely,” Ranger said. “He didn’t want to talk to me about it, but you might have more luck. Are you running tomorrow morning?”

“Gee, I’d love to, but I have blisters.”

Ranger looked relieved.

I thought it wouldn’t hurt to look professional when I went to see Mrs. Steeger, so I’d dressed in a tailored black suit, white silk shirt, leopard print silk scarf, taupe stockings and heels. I wasn’t a master at long division, but I could accessorize with the best of them.

I’d called ahead to tell Mrs. Steeger I was stopping by. Then I’d spent a few moments lecturing myself about attitude. I was an adult. I was a professional. And I looked pretty damn good in my black suit. It was unacceptable that I should be intimidated by Mrs. Steeger. As a final precaution against insecurity, I made sure my .38 was loaded and tucked into my shoulder bag. Nothing
like packing a pistol to put spring in a girl’s step.

I parked on Ferris Street, got out of the car and sashayed up the sidewalk to Steeger’s front porch. I gave the door a couple authoritative knocks and stood back.

Mrs. Steeger opened the door and looked me over. “Are you carrying a gun? I don’t want you in my house if you’re carrying a gun.”

“I’m not carrying a gun,” I said. Lie number one. I told myself it was all right to lie since Mrs. Steeger expected it. In fact, she’d probably be disappointed if I told the truth. And hell, I wouldn’t want to disappoint Mrs. Steeger.

She led the way into the living room, seated herself in a club chair and motioned me to a corresponding chair on the other side of the coffee table.

The room was compulsively neat, and it occurred to me that Mrs. Steeger had retired while still vital and now had nothing better to do than to polish the polish. Windows were trimmed with white sheers and heavy flowered drapes. Furniture was boxy. Fabric and rug were sensible browns and tans. Mahogany end tables, a dark cherry rocker.
Two white Lenox swan nut dishes sat side by side on the coffee table. Nut dishes without nuts. I had a feeling Mrs. Steeger didn’t get a lot of company.

She sat there for a moment, poised on the edge of her seat, probably wondering if she was required by burg etiquette to offer me refreshments. I saved her the decision by immediately going into my spiel. I emphasized the fact that Mo was in danger now. He’d put a dent in the pharmaceutical profit margin and not everyone was pleased. Relatives of dead people were unhappy. The pharmaceutical management was bound to be unhappy. Users and abusers were unhappy.

“And Mo isn’t good at this,” I added. “He isn’t a professional hit man.” Even as I said it a little voice was whispering…eight bodies. How many does it take to make a professional?

I rose and handed Mrs. Steeger my card before she could quiz me on state capitals or ask me to write a book report on
John Quincy Adams, Biography of a Statesman.

Mrs. Steeger held my card between two fingers. The way you do when you’re afraid of cootie contamination. “Just exactly what is it you want me to do?”

“I’d like to talk to Mo. See if I can work something out. Get him back into the system before he gets hurt.”

“You want him to call you.”

“Yes.”

“If I hear from him again I’ll pass the message.”

I extended my hand. “Thank you.”

End of visit.

Neither of us had mentioned the incident in the store. This subject was way beyond our comfort zone. Mrs. Steeger hadn’t discovered I was lying about the gun and hadn’t threatened to send me to the principal’s office, so I considered the entire session a rousing success.

I thought it wouldn’t hurt to revisit some neighboring houses. Hopefully the climate would be more receptive now that bodies had been discovered in Mo’s basement.

Dorothy Rostowski seemed a good place to start. I knocked on her door and waited while kids shouted inside.

Dorothy appeared with a spoon in her hand. “Making supper,” she said. “You want to come in?”

“Thanks, but I’ve only got a minute. I just wanted to let you know I’m still looking for Mo Bedemier.”

I felt the climate shift, and Dorothy’s husband came to stand at her side.

“There are a lot of people in this community who’d prefer Mo wasn’t found,” Rostowski said.

My stomach clenched and for a chilling moment I thought he might pull out a gun or a knife or light up a cigarette and threaten me. My mind raced back to the phone call that had lured me to the candy store. Would I have recognized Dorothy’s voice on the phone? Would I have recognized Mrs. Molinowsky’s niece, Joyce, or Loretta Beeber, or my cousin Marjorie? And who were those men who were prepared to burn me and possibly kill me? Fathers of kids like these? Neighbors? Schoolmates? Maybe one of them had been Dorothy’s husband.

“What we’d really like is for all this to be over, so Mo could come back and reopen the store,” Dorothy said. “The kids miss him.”

I had a hard time hiding my astonishment. “Mo’s suspected of killing eight men!”

“Drug dealers,” Dorothy said.

“That doesn’t make it okay.”

“It makes it better than okay. Mo should get a medal.”

“Killing people is wrong.”

Dorothy looked down at the floor, studying
a spot just in front of her toe. Her voice dropped. “Theoretically I know that’s true, but I’m fed up with the drugs and the crime. If Mo wants to take matters in his own hands, I’m not going to rain on his parade.”

“I don’t suppose you’d call me if you saw Mo in the neighborhood?”

“Don’t suppose I would,” Dorothy said, still avoiding my eyes.

I crossed the street to talk to Mrs. Bartle.

She met me at the door with her arms crossed over her chest. Not good body language, I thought, taking a mental step backward.

“Is this about Mo?” she asked. “Because I’m going to tell you up front if he was running for president I’d be right there with my vote. It’s about time somebody did something about the drug problem in this country.”

“He’s suspected of killing eight men!”

“Too bad it isn’t more. Get rid of every last one of them dope pushers.”

On the way home I stopped in to see Connie and Lula. Connie was at her desk. Lula was out like a light on the couch.

“She had a tough morning,” I said to Connie. “Went running with Ranger and me.
Then she got drilled with special sauce by a chicken.”

“So I hear.”

Lula opened an eye. “Hmmph.” She opened the other eye and took in the suit. “What are you all dressed up for?”

“Business. It’s a disguise.”

“How’s the Mo hunt going?” Connie wanted to know.

“Picking up. Ranger got his car back.”

This got Lula to her feet. “Say what?”

I told them about the two visits to Mrs. Steeger. Then I told them about Ranger’s office.

“You see,” Lula said. “Just like Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne had an office.”

Connie gave Lula one of her “what the hell are you talking about” looks, so Lula explained her Ranger is a superhero theory.

“First off,” Connie said, “Bruce Wayne is Batman, and Batman isn’t actually a superhero. Batman’s just some neurotic guy in a rubber suit. You have to get nuked or come from another planet to be a real superhero.”

“Batman’s got his own comic book,” Lula said.

Connie wasn’t impressed with this logic.
“Donald Duck has his own comic book. You think Donald Duck is a superhero?”

“What’s the office like?” Lula asked. “Does he have a secretary?”

“No secretary,” I said. “It’s a one-person office with a desk and a couple chairs.”

“We should go over there and snoop around,” Lula said. “See what we can find.”

Anyone snooping around Ranger’s private space would have to have a death wish. “Not a good idea,” I told Lula. “Not only would he kill us, but it’s also not a nice thing to do. He’s not the enemy.”

Lula didn’t look convinced. “That’s all true, but I’d still like to snoop.”

“You don’t really think he’s a superhero,” Connie said to Lula. “You think he’s hot.”

“Damn skippy I do,” Lula said. “But that doesn’t mean he isn’t hiding something. The man has secrets, I’m telling you.”

Connie leaned forward. “Secrets could mean lots of things. He could be wanted for murder in twelve states and have assumed a new identity. Even better…he could be gay.”

“I don’t want to think about him being gay,” Lula said. “Seems like anymore, all the buff bodies are gay, and all the bad-smelling, rangy men are straight. I find out Ranger’s
gay and I’m going straight to the freezer section at Shop & Bag. Only men you can count on these days is Ben and Jerry.”

Connie and I nodded sympathetically. Used to be I worried about losing my boyfriends to Joyce Barnhardt. Now I had to worry about losing them to her brother, Kevin.

I was curious about Ranger, but I wasn’t nearly as curious as Lula. I had bigger fish to fry. I had to find Mo. I had to get my pickup. I had to nail down Joe Morelli’s sudden disinterest in me. I was pretty sure it didn’t have to do with a shortage of Y chromosomes.

I backtracked to my parents’ house, recruited my father to drive the Buick home and zipped off to the garage.

My father didn’t say anything on the trip over, but his thoughts were vibrating off the top of his head.

“I know,” I said, testily. “I wouldn’t be having this trouble if I’d bought a Buick.”

The Nissan was parked in a numbered slot in the lot. My father and I cut our eyes to it in silent suspicion.

“You want me to wait?” my father asked.

“Not necessary.”

My father cruised off. We’d done this routine before.

Ernie, the service manager, was in the little office attached to the warehouse of bays. He saw me on line and stepped from behind the counter, took my keys from a hook on the wall and pulled my bill. “You talked to Slick about the carburetor?”

“Yes.”

Ernie smiled. “We like to keep our customers happy. Don’t want you going away without a full explanation.”

I was so happy I was practically suicidal. If I had to spend any more time talking to Slick, I was going to slit my throat.

“I’m in sort of a hurry,” I said, passing Ernie my credit card. Another lie. I had absolutely nothing to do. I was all dressed up with nowhere to go.

If I was a hotshot detective I’d park myself in a van a couple houses down from the candy store, and I’d watch Mrs. Steeger. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a hotshot detective. I didn’t have a van. I couldn’t afford to buy one. I couldn’t afford to rent one. And since everyone in the burg was so nosy, a van probably wouldn’t work anyway.

Just for kicks I drove by Morelli’s house. Sort of test-driving the pickup. Morelli’s car was parked at the curb, and lights were on inside the house. I eased up behind the 4x4
and cut the engine. I checked myself out in the rearview mirror. When a person has orange hair it’s best to appraise it in the dark.

“Well, what the hell,” I said.

By the time I knocked on Morelli’s front door my heart was doing little flutter things in my chest.

Morelli opened the door and grimaced. “If you have another dead guy in your car I don’t want to hear about it.”

“This is a social call.”

“Even worse.”

The chest flutterings stopped. “What kind of a crack is that?”

“It’s nothing. Forget it. You look frozen. Where’s your coat?”

I stepped into the foyer. “I didn’t wear a coat. It was warmer when I started out this afternoon.”

I followed Morelli back to the kitchen and watched while he filled a cordial glass with amber liquid.

“Here,” he said, handing the glass over. “Fastest way to get warm.”

I took a sniff. “What is it?”

“Schnapps. My uncle Lou makes it in his cellar.”

I tried a teeny taste and my tongue went numb. “I don’t know…”

Morelli raised eyebrows. “Chicken?”

“I don’t see you drinking this stuff.”

Morelli took the glass from my hand and tossed the contents down his throat. He refilled the glass and gave it back to me. “Your turn, Cupcake.”

“To the Pope,” I said and drained the glass.

“Well?” Morelli asked. “What do you think?”

I did some coughing and openmouthed wheezing. My throat burned, and liquid fire roiled in my stomach and shot through to every extremity. My scalp started to sweat, and my vagina went into spasm. “Pretty good,” I finally said to Morelli.

“Want another?”

I shook my finger in a no motion. “Maybe later.”

“What’s with the suit?”

I told him about Ranger’s car, and about my second trip to speak to Mrs. Steeger. I told him about Dorothy Rostowski and Mrs. Bartle.

“People are nuts,” Morelli said. “Freaking nuts.”

“So why don’t you want this to be a social visit?”

“Forget it.”

“It’s the hair, isn’t it?”

“It’s not the hair.”

“You’re secretly married?”

“I’m not secretly anything.”

“Well then, what? What?”

“It’s you. You’re a walking disaster. A man would have to be a total masochist to be interested in you.”

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe I will have another schnapps.”

He poured two out, and we both threw them back. It was easier this time. Less fire. More glow.

“I’m not a walking disaster,” I said. “I can’t imagine why you think that.”

“Every time I get social with you I end up all by myself, naked, in the middle of the street.”

I rolled my eyes. “That only happened once…and you weren’t naked. You were wearing socks and a shirt.”

“I was speaking figuratively. If you want to get specific, what about the time you locked me in a freezer truck with three corpses? What about the time you ran over me with the Buick?”

I threw my hands into the air. “Oh sure, bring up the Buick.”

He shook his head, disgusted like. “You’re impossible. You’re not worth the effort.”

I curled my fingers into the front of his T-shirt and hauled him closer. “Not even in your dreams could you imagine how impossible I can be.”

We were toe to toe with my breasts skimming his chest, our eyes locked.

“I’ll drink to that,” Morelli said.

The third schnapps went down smooth as silk. I gave the empty glass to Morelli and licked my lips.

Morelli watched the lip licking, and his eyes darkened and his breathing slowed.

Aha!
I thought. This was more like it. Got him interested with the old lip-licking routine.